


The Business of Emotion

by ActuallyAndroid



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Spoilers, don't read until you've finished the 6th palace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActuallyAndroid/pseuds/ActuallyAndroid
Summary: Now that it's come down to it, he'd gladly give his life up for you in a heartbeat.





	The Business of Emotion

Goro Akechi is not sure what he’s feeling.

He knows it’s bad, that much he can tell from the get go, but he hasn’t given it enough thought to categorise it into pretty little boxes. The past few hours have been too chaotic to even try. There’s more time to think about it now, he supposes, while you’re  _asleep —_and the blaring thrum of his heart in his chest doesn’t sound through his body with the force of a drum. He feels the cold skin on your hand, and it seems ill and sickly compared to the warmth he usually associates with trailing his fingers along your palms.

It all comes back to the moment he loses control of himself; when the difference between inflicting and receiving pain thins to an incomprehensible, mid-battle haze in his fight against the Phantom Thieves—until the adrenaline recedes along with the strength in his legs and he falls to the floor.

“Please don’t fight us anymore,” you say, standing over him.

His initial reaction is to laugh in your face.

_Amusement._

Because it _is_ funny, isn’t it? He's wanted to walk this path long before your first confession —long before he met you or the rest of the Phantom Thieves. Ever since his birth, his life has been an absolute misery: his father abandoned him, his mother hated him, yelled at him, used his fear to control his behaviour in front of others, and eventually, he walked in on her hanging from a ceiling. He spent the first six years of his life hungry and cold, and the next eleven after that lonely and scared.

Think about ratios here, he tries to justify; two days can’t change a man, even if it was two days ago that—

(“I love you, Goro.”)

Suddenly, the laugh in his throat feels like a lump.

 _Fear_  is the second emotion. It comes when the Phantom Thieves crowd around him, because he feels small; curled up on the floor and holding everywhere that aches like the same lonely child from all those years ago.

“If everyone knew how much of a cry-baby you are, they’d tell me to leave you,” his mother says, and walks out of the room to smoke a cigarette.

Right now, Goro Akechi isn’t crying.

“Now that you know who I am, you should leave me,” he says. You’re staring down at him while he curls up on the floor, meeting his pained eyes through the jagged edges of his broken helmet. You don’t look like you want to acknowledge his words. You just look kind of  _sad_.

The resolute tone in his voice does nothing to portray the tremors inside of him. On repeat, like a broken tape recorder, all he can think is ‘please don’t.’ It’s pathetic, it really is, because it’s only now that he’s lost and grovelling at your feet that he wants your pity. By all means, you should leave him.

He’s  _scared_  of your response, because even if he’s not scared of dying here, he  _is_  scared of losing you, and he can’t imagine there’s any way to salvage your relationship when you’ve found out how he’s been pulling the strings.

“We’re not leaving you,” you say.

Like water sinking into the earth, his dread disappears. He’s dumbstruck, because as much he was hoping (praying, begging, desperately wishing) for this turn of events, he didn’t think it would actually happen.

“Why?” His voice is tattered, far away from the confidence he's grown accustomed to feigning.

“I think you need our help," you say, looking a little unsure of yourself, like you're preparing for him to recoil at you in anger. The Phantom Thieves nod along. “I want to help you.”

There’s something akin to bewildered _joy_ , but it doesn’t last long. Before he can say anything, a shadow blurs the corner of his vision, and his doppleganger reveals himself from the darkness to turn the entire situation on its head.

He should know there’s something off about your face, about the way you’re standing slightly on your tip toes with the muscles in your calves all tensed up and solid, but he’s got other things to worry about. After all, he  _is_  on the receiving end of a gun.

He needs to play this right.

 _Fear_  comes again, and stays for a while. He fears a lot of things in that moment. He’s fears for your life, and it feels strange when just seconds ago he was so indifferent to it. It’s the driving force behind the way his face pulls into a grin that feels too tight for his face, and points the gun straight towards you. It’s the first time in his life he’s feared pulling the trigger, and he fears the hurt expression on your face as he does it. He fears the next decision he has to make, and that too, feels strange, because he’s so used to being ready to throw his life away. Maybe he’s been underestimating how much the human body wants to survive now that it’s come down to it. (Not that it has a choice, anyway.)

 _Acceptance_ is next. When he laughs, it’s because he knows there’s no way around it. This is the best-case scenario. You and other Phantom Thieves are the winners in this situation. You’re kinder, more honest, and have more love to give—and now that it's come down to it, he'd gladly give his life up for you in a heartbeat. 

Akechi swerves towards his doppelganger and fires the bullet.

The next few seconds are a mad flurry of  _confusion_. He can barely remember them now, when there’s not so much as a painting on the blank, white wall of the hospital room to distract him. He thinks maybe you’re the first one to move, which makes sense, because if you and a bullet get to the same place at the same time, then surely the bullet needs to be the one to go second.

There’s a shot, but that’s fine; it’s what he’s expecting. What he’s not expecting, however, is you coming out of formation to jump at his doppelganger with a knife aimed straight at his gut, and the bullet to sink neatly into your skull.

There’s gasps, then  _panic_. Pure, unadulterated  _panic_.

Every part of him snaps.

“No!” He jumps towards you. His breath comes out in short little gasps. With no absence in adrenaline, he shoves the other Akechi off and holds your body to his chest.

Your eyes are open, wide, wide open. You’re scared.

“No, no, no. Please don’t do this,” he chokes out. Blood drips down to where he’s holding your head in his hand. There’s already something wet on his face, blurry tears in his vision. “You’re not doing this.”

The rest of the Phantom Thieves start acting quickly (and how typical is that, he thinks, that he’s the one being useless again.) Akira approaches him from behind and places a hand on his shoulder.

“You hold her head,” he says.

The other Akechi coughs in the background, and spouts some incomprehensible mutter about betrayal, about how Akechi is worthless, and how the one person who  _loved_  him is going to pay for it. He’s dying quickly. You pulled the knife out of his stomach as your fell back into Akechi’s arms, so the blood from his stomach is coming out in little spurts that colour his khaki coat with a deep crimson. Spasms go through his legs as he coughs again, but that’s fine. He doesn’t matter. You do.

Ryuji picks up your legs, Akira picks up your torso, and Akechi gently holds your head. He’s weak. The fight has left him broken and bruised everywhere he still retains traces of feeling, but the adrenaline is still there. You’re still there too, and that’s what makes the difference. It’s all he needs, even if the shaky tremors that run through his feet make every step feel wobbly.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispers into your hair, and Ryuji looks at him with something that can’t be described as anything more than pity. “Please, I love you.” (Like he’s trying to convince you to stay.)

“I still love you,” he says, taking your cold hand to his lips. The tick of the hospital clock feels too methodical. Fifteen minutes to twelve, it says, to remind him that everyone else has left long ago. “You’ll love me too, when you wake up, right?” The steady beeping line of the heart monitor doesn’t affect him. “Even if this is all my fault.” The nurse that comes into the room and ushers him out can’t stop him either, because he just waits outside and leans against the door until the next morning. “Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me,” he hums against the wall, over and over.

He’s not sure if  _denial_  is an emotion.


End file.
